I bought a house in October after living in an apartment for a couple years. There were two big reasons I wanted to own a house versus renting. The first reason is that after renting for two years I realized I had spent close to $20,000 on rent which could have gone toward a house. Even though my apartment was beautiful, new, had great neighbors, was plowed for me in the winter, etc, I still opted to buy a house. The other big reason that I wanted to buy a house is because I missed having a yard. My apartment had only a small patio. I yearned for a lawn to mow, leaves to rake, digging my hands into garden soil and planting lots of flowers and having a veggie garden. And now, I'm happy to say, I have that!
If you scroll down you can see some photos of my gardens. The people who owned the house before me planted a lot of perrenials and I have to admit I fell in love with this house before I ever stepped foot inside it. In the back of the house we built four large garden beds/planters which are my vegetable gardens. I planted tomatoes, zucchini, beans, carrots, radish, beets, spinach, lettuce, green onions, and cilantro. I've given away bags of spinach and lettuce and onion greens several times and have eaten more than my fill of it. The salads I've made with the fresh spinach and lettuce are beyond good. Radishes are just becoming large enough to eat and yet small enough not to be too strong. I made salsa yesterday by simply adding lots of cilantro, some black beans, diced can tomatoes, shoepeg corn, pepper, and garlic salt to a big jar of storebought salsa. Yummy! Today I pulled out all the rest of the spinach as it had become overgrown in size and replanted. It's so early in the year a second crop is easily attainable. My boyfriend who is an awesome carpenter and handy man built me a wooden pump/water feature, which right now circulates into a big flower pot that I am going to cover with rock in the next few days. We went to a local greenhouse and bought two water plants this afternoon. The plants aren't in these photos as I bought them after I took the photos. I bought a fire pit yesterday and today we laid some circular blocks and pretty red granite rocks to put it on, and tonight we feasted on hot dogs and s'mores. I can't tell you how in my element I was to sit outside as the sun was setting and night falling listening to the chirping of birds, the running water from the water pump, and feeling the warmth of the fire in the fire pit as it cheered up the damp, dewy evening. Ahhh summer!
If you love being outdoors, love summer and vacationing, love gardening...you might like some of these cute summer and gardening theme T-shirts and gifts! Happy summer!
